The Scourge of Alterus
by MalagBaal
Summary: When SG-1 find an Ancient Outpost in the Milky Way Galaxy they get more than they bargained for, from unpleasant critters to just about every Bad Guy they ever met... Set between episodes 10.3 & 10.5, but no real spoilers. General Team & Friend Fic. R&R.
1. Arrival

_Disclaimer & A/N: I don't own the Stargate universe - don't sue me. This story is set sometime between episodes 10.3 and 10.5. My beta reader is Jenwryn, so you can moan to her if there's anything wrong (I can write that, because she's my sister). This is my first piece of fan fiction, please read, enjoy, and tell me what you think... _

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**Chapter 1: Arrival**

_For thousands of years it had waited in the dark. It would sleep and awaken at the slightest disturbance within its lair. Since the last of the lights had gone out and the wonderful darkness had taken over, nothing of any consequence had moved and now it was becoming restless. A short time ago the Great Circle had lit up, but nothing edible had come through, only some metal creature, which it had avoided and would continue to do so - unless it moved further. For now, it would bide its time, at least for another few decades. _

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Colonel Cameron Mitchell stepped through the gate between Teal'c and Carter. Behind them came Daniel and Vala, bickering like an old couple as usual. Mitchell turned on the small torch on his P-90, as did the rest of SG-1. He made no comment as his team began to spread randomly over the room. At the start he'd tried using the correct terms to move them around but apart from the fact that they all knew his job better than he did (except perhaps Vala – and even she _thought _she did), he found it immensely tedious to be constantly barking orders. He started away across the room, stepping around the MALP, and towards the staircase set into the far wall.

Then he looked up, pointing his torch at the ceiling. "Well," came his voice back to the others, "it's definitely Ancient." He made a sweeping gesture, taking in the room around them. Daniel shot him a _you don't say_ look and continued reading the Ancient writing he'd found on the wall.

Vala, on the other hand, walked up behind Mitchell and said, "Ancient, eh?"

"Yep," he answered, "and anything here of value'd be long, _long_ gone, and if not _we're_ taking it."

"But this stuff's worth an awful lot - look - I can split you in twenty percent."

"Nope."

Behind them SG-12 stepped into the room through the gate. The second that the MALP had revealed Ancient tech, SG-12 had been assigned to assist them. Major Davidson and Lieutenant Bolton both had the ATA gene and so would be no doubt be extremely helpful.

"Fifty-fifty, then," continued Vala without missing a beat.

Mitchell started up the stairs, doing his best to ignore her.

"Name your price..." Then she shrugged, frowned, and stopped, put off for a moment or so. Before she could start again, he began talking loudly, though everyone just looked up momentarily as his voice echoed around the room and then went back to work. He didn't mind, but kept talking anyway, "I don't know why we get these stupid little flashlights."

He stepped up the first few steps and looked up around again. It was like Dagobah only _minus_ the swamp; the whole place was dry, but he could just imagine some giant swamp monster reaching out of a dark corner and grabbing Daniel, now hunched over some archaic panel in the floor.

Mitchell kept talking, "I've seen those great big wide-beam things they've got in the SGC. They keep 'em under look and key though. Looks like they're stashing them up to power the Antarctic chair..." He reached the top of the stairs and looked over his shoulder. Vala had given up completely by the looks of it, and had gone to irritate Daniel instead. "Real flashlights," he muttered. Oh well, at least he'd shut Vala up. Just as he was grinning to himself happily, he tripped over something on the floor, which rattled dryly. He flashed his torch at it and jumped. "Man, some light would _really_ save these nasty surprises!" He turned slightly and called down the wide staircase, "Hey, you guys - you'll want to get up here." Maybe they heard something in his tone, because the rest of his team raced up the stairs and suddenly, the combined lights of their torches lit up the ages-old body of a very, _very_ dead Ancient.

"Well, someone isn't doing so well. Remarkably well preserved," murmured Daniel.

"Indeed."

"Well, the base is probably so completely isolated from environmental factors that..."

Vala glanced around a little worriedly, "Do you get these often?"

"Now that you mention it..." smirked Mitchell, "Yeah."

Davidson's team joined them, and looked past SG-1 at the corpse, though Lieutenant Bolton – SG-12's tech expert - had to balance a little awkwardly on the stairs to try and see around Teal'c.

"Well, whatever happened," began Daniel.

"It must have been pretty bad, for Ancients to lose," continued Mitchell.

They all looked at him.

"Haven't you guys read _any_ of Colonel Sheppard's mission reports? When those guys lose the bad guys have _really_ big guns." He paused and then muttered, "or there's thousands of them, or they suck the life out of you with their hands..."

"I can't seriously imagine anything here being worse than the Ori though," said Carter, "and…. I think I've found a way to access these computer terminals - but I'll need time to look at it."

Everyone except Carter and Bolton spread out across the room, Daniel drawn magnetically to the nearest panel with Alteran script on it, while Teal'c and Mitchell stood about trying to look important, glancing around and flickering their lights into dark corners, as though there might be a stray Iratis Bug or some R75 wandering around. Meanwhile, Vala just hovered around, getting in the way of Davidson's men, then finally coming to rest next to Daniel - predictably.

"Don't you think it's likely some kind of creature killed those people?" she asked.

"No, I don't," he replied, "In fact, I think it's far more likely the disease the Ancients fled from killed these people before they could leave."

"No critters here anymore, anyway," commented Mitchell from the stairs.

Everyone fell quiet, and the only sound came from the scanner Carter was attempting to interface to the controls with. And the drip of water. Maybe there _is_ a swamp in here after all, thought Mitchell, trying to imagine the look on Landry's face if he were to write a report about meeting a small green guy with a habit for speaking backwards…

"I'm taking a walk," said Daniel.

Carter raised a hand in acknowledgement and Mitchell shrugged like 'go ahead'. Daniel walked off with Vala trailing between two old blackened lighting columns, the archaeologist moving quickly and confidently through the halls.

"What are we doing?" asked Vala curiously, bounding along beside him, "And _how_ do you know where you're going?"

He glanced at her absently, "I think..." Then he paused momentarily, before stepping forwards into a circular room, "Ah, yes, here we are."

Her eyes widened, "This looks just like..."

He nodded, and finished before she could, "Exactly. Atlantis' hologram room." They exchanged a look, before he added, "And it's in the same place and so is everything else…"

When they arrived back at the control room to share their news, a short time later, Carter and Lieutenant Bolton had finished their work on the interface to the base, and just as they entered, the astrophysicist was exclaiming, "This place! It's... another city of the Ancients!"


	2. Big Guns And All That Jazz

_A/N: Thanks to Elizabeth Nova, Lurch, Jenwryn, and selache51, for reviews/alerts etc!!! And sorry this one's a bit shorter, more chapters to come... _

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**Chapter 2: Big Guns And All That Jazz**

Back at the SGC Colonel Carter went over the mission at the debriefing. "...this new city seems to be identical in shape and size to Atlantis - although it seems to be buried under half a mountain of soil." She looked to General Landry and said, "With your permission, sir, I would like to return with SG-12 and at least a naquadah generator, to try and activate some of the city's basic systems." She paused - remembering something - "Also, I would like to give this sample to Doctor Lam, and find out if the subject died of a disease or not."

"I need to go as well," butted in Daniel, "From what I saw this city could be the oldest thing we've found in this Galaxy to date."

"Always to the point, aren't you?" commented Landry wryly. "Anyone else got any good reasons to send you back there?" he sat back into his chair and looked around, positively challenging anyone else to dare.

"They've got big guns, sir," murmured Mitchell. He knew exactly which buttons to push. Admittedly, _everyone _died, but mostly it was left to him, as SG-1's theoretical leader. "ZPMs, maybe, all that jazz. Probably stuff even Atlantis' mob have never seen."

"Well, put like that, how can I refuse?" The General grinned at them and stood up (to the sound of Carter and Mitchell's chairs scraping as they jumped to their feet) and said, "SG-1 you have a go to return to this city of yours, and you can take SG-12. Oh, and you're in luck - I happen to have to have he planet's second -" he nodded at Carter, "best for this stuff on hand."

Carter's smile faded with a dash of pessimistic premonition.

As they geared up, Doctor Rodney McKay listed his woes. "... dragging me off my work on this end of the intergalactic gate bridge, and dumping me with _people_" he glared pointedly at Mitchell, "Who can't even boast about MENSA at least..."

He turned to Carter, "At least there's _someone_ here of measurable intelligence." He smiled broadly at her.

"So, who's that fruitloop that's coming with us?" demanded Vala not so discreetly.

"_That fruitloop_" snarked McKay, "is the smartest man on the planet."

Vala pulled a face, "Oh, well then... My opinion of this planet's intelligence just dropped."

When they reached the gateroom and McKay and Vala still hadn't shut up, Mitchell felt obliged to tell them to, and for a while they obeyed, though they kept giving each other narked looks.

"SG-1 and 12," said Landry's voice through the speakers, "You have a go. Bring me back some guns."

Meanwhile, Doctor Lam, working with Doctor Lee, had begun running tests on the sample Colonel Carter had brought back from the city. She'd already completed the preliminary tests and the results were really quite surprising. the virus that had wiped out the Ancients left easily visible symptoms, even on a sample as old as this. But, whatever had killed this man had been far more subtle and quick acting. A new strain, perhaps?

She'd stopped working briefly for a snack, stopped to see how Lee was going (no better than her, what a surprise) before continuing with some more precise tests.

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_Once again, creatures had come through the Great Circle. But before its brothers could be awakened they had gone again. But next time, they would not have such luck. It scuttled quickly towards the gate's control room. It climbed around the inner workings of the computers, naturally not understanding what it saw. But the hive-mind did. From the information passed down from the Ancestors it understood that by destroying, or at least removing a specific crystal in a specific console that the Great Circle would not activate from this end. There would be no escape. And now, they were ready. But before it could pull the crystal it snapped a wire with its foot. The current ran through it, and before it would pull way the current fried both it, and the control crystal..._


	3. Alterus

**Chapter 3: Alterus**

The city remained as dark and as silent as it had been when they had left. However, it wouldn't remain so for long. Firstly, there was the whoosh of the wormhole establishing, followed closely by SG-1's voices and muffled footsteps...

_"I can't stand the man..." _

_"I can't think why Sheppard hasn't shot him yet - McKay must be pretty darn good to put up with that..." _

_"Indeed..." _

...then SG-12, completely silent, followed by the sound of McKay stomping.

This trip through, Mitchell noticed the blue chevrons on the gate, just like in Pegasus. He couldn't believe he could possibly have missed something so glaringly obvious - but then, the gate was so commonplace to him now... _man, that's weird_, he thought, _that I no longer consider a large disc-shaped alien transporter to be strange. _He turned on his torch with a flash of light, as did SG-1 and then 12. Only McKay hadn't turned one on. The first thing _he _did was shatter the silence preserved by the other eight, screeching, "You call those puny things torches?" He got a self-satisfied look on his face and pulled something out of one of the packs he'd mad Davidson's men carry through for him. He thumbed a button and, as the massive, wide beam emitted from the torch added smugly, "Those aren't torches - _this _is a torch."

Mitchell was struck silent for a moment, then burst out, "How the hell did you get that?"

McKay's self-satisfied grin widened. "Smuggled it in. See? Suddenly I'm wanted."

Mitchell grimaced and grabbed the naquadah generator, carrying it to where Carter was waiting, and putting it where she wanted it. Lieutenant Rachel Bolton came up the stairs behind him, carrying a bagful of equipment which she was carrying with Teal'c. _Stubborn,_ thought Mitchell. Teal'c had hold of his end as if it were a feather weight, while she was dragging it like a tonne of bricks...

McKay, meanwhile, had taken one look at the generator Mitchell had been lugging and his face lit up. He mustered up Davidson and his two men, and came over to the Colonel with a stupid grin on his face and a light in his eyes, "You said this city's just like Atlantis, right?" Without waiting for an answer, he continued, "No, no, don't bother - so, it'd run on ZPMs."

"And you think there might be some spares," guessed Carter.

"Bingo!" He was almost rubbing his hands together with glee at the thought, "I amaze even myself some days. So, I just thought I could go take a look...?"

"Fine with me," muttered Mitchell, shrugging and hefting his P-90.

McKay nodded rapidly, "I'll be back when the lights are on," he said. He looked so excited that for a moment Mitchell thought he was going to bow - _guess his bad back stopped him. _

The Canadian vanished down the hall and was soon out of earshot, though they did hear one last comment made to Major Davidson, "_So, you're all prepared to die for me right, because..." _

Carter sighed in relief. "Thank God he's gone."

"How long'll he be?" asked Lieutenant Bolton.

"With the transporters down? A good three hours."

Bolton grinned.

At the same time, Daniel was still sifting through a portable device he'd been playing with since finding it on the dead Ancient the day before hand. Clearly, it was a portable history databank - a strange choice for a corpse to be holding - but he hadn't found anything of interest in it yet and it wasn't likely he would in a hurry. He sat on the edge of the steps, and scrolled down to the next row of Ancient writing - and suddenly, _finally _came to something that caught his curiosity. But just at that moment, he heard a scuttling noise in the hallway. He picked up his P-90 and shone its light around. _Nothing... just an Ancient city. Mustn't have been anything_, he thought. He grabbed his work and walked to where Carter and Bolton were still struggling with the lights and getting the city online.

"How's it coming then?" he asked them.

"Not too well. And you?"

"Well. I've actually got quite a bit to report - for a start, the city's name." He paused, as though for dramatic effect, glanced at them expectantly, "The city's name was Alterus!"

Blank looks all around met this statement. Not quite the reaction he'd hoped for, but then, it was the one he should have expected, when he thought about it. After all, the legend of Alterus didn't even exist on Earth so far as he could tell. It was pretty obscure stuff even on the planet he'd found it on.

"Daniel Jackson, I am sure that means something to you..." began Teal'c.

"... but let's all just pretend for a moment we're not all Ancient Historians and that we have no idea what the hell you're talking about," finished Mitchell.

"Okay, okay," protested Daniel, raising his hands, "In some Ancient stories and legends, Alterus was said to be 'from whence they came' - that is, the original Alterans, when they came to settle the Milky Way - this must have been the city that they came in..." he paused, thinking rapidly, "And not only does this database show that this is _that _original city..."

"The city couldn't have survived that long," broke in Carter, "We're talking millions of years."

"Well, I presume the city was maintained by the Ancients, over the years - probably nothing here is_ actually _the original any more. What's important, though, is that they never left for the Pegasus Galaxy. The people of this city took their chances with the disease. Eventually, however, several people were killed by an unstoppable 'scourge', according to these records - the disease, I'm guessing. And so the rest sealed themselves in stasis pods until it had passed..." his eyes lit up with such delight it was almost like watching a goa'uld, "...and they never left, or they left in a hurry, because that's where all the records end."

"And the bodies start?" muttered Vala.

Carter glanced at her, then back at Daniel, "So, why didn't the pods open up when the danger had passed, if that's the scenario?"

He shrugged slightly, "I don't know, but..."

"You want to try and find them, right?" Sam gave him a look.

He smiled, "Of course."

"Okay, Teal'c - you go give Indiana Jones a hand," ordered Mitchell, "I'll stay here with the ladies and 'keep guard'..." He winked at Bolton and laughed. Daniel and Vala, followed by Teal'c vanished out through the same door which had already claimed McKay.

"Looks like it's just us then," stated Mitchell and stretched slowly, "Why didn't these people understand the meaning of 'comfy chair'?" He shrugged, sat on the steps with his back against a wall, and about ten seconds fell asleep.

"How do people do that?" asked Bolton and as the sound of Mitchell's breathing filled the room.

"Who, him?" Carter laughed, "Years of hard practice..."


	4. ZPMs, Glory & Sudden Demise

_Thanks go to Jude, LaneIA and SenseOfTime for the reviews. It´s really stinking hot here in Spain, but I´ve finally got my act together and here´s the next chapter! Hope you like it, I´ve got lots of ideas for the rest of the story and just have to get a move on and actually write them up._

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**Chapter 4: ZPMs, Glory & Sudden Demise...**

In the meantime, Davidson's team and McKay were only a few doors away from the power room. Since the city was still off-line, each door they came to had to be prised open manually. It was times like these that knuckle heads such as SG-12 came in useful, thought McKay. Without a _logical_ way to do it, he'd still have been at the second door. The Canadian was in high spirits as yet another door opened before him. Not only was he convinced that he was about to find a small stash of ZPMs, but nothing - nothing at all, not one single slimy thing - had tried to eat him, poison him, take over his mind, or otherwise invade his Personal Space. Later, he hoped, when he got the city up and running and they'd gone and defeated the Ori ships in this galaxy, he might even be put in charge...

The last door separating him from glory creaked open under the pressure of mankind's most advanced tool - a crowbar. He stepped into the room, but his hopes were dented just a winsy bit as he saw there was nothing in the room but the power column. Maybe, he thought with sudden pessamism, those three ZPMs would be depleated by now... He swung his central massive-wide-beam torch around the power column, and stepped up to it. Still, his hopes rose again, when he saw three brightly glowing ZPMs in their slots. As he put his torch on the ground (face up, so that the beam lit the room), Davidson and his men came through the door behind him, P-90s still held at the ready. McKay pulled an Ancient scanner from a jacket pocket, and tested each ZPM in turn. Each of them was at about 98 capacity. "Wow," he murmured, then, remembering where he was, added impatiently, "So, why no lights?" He bent over with difficulty and pulled the pannelling off one side of the triangular column. "Well, that explains that then."

Standing up again, the physcist pulled his radio from yet another pocket, and spoke into it, "Hey, anyone? Anyone at all..."

Mitchell jerked awake as his radio crackled and half-mumbled, half-groaned, "Wha'sup?"

"Ah, Colonel, yes. I've reached the ZPM room..."

"Just tell me the problem already, McKay."

"Why should there be a problem?" retorted McKay, insultedly, "Why, do you always presume I'm going to report bad news? What is it, Rodney calls so the world's ending, hm? Is that it, eh?"

"Mostly, yes," stated Mitchell dryly.

There was a slight pause. "Well. Anyway. I've found three ZPMs, all at nearly 100 capacity, but..."

"Ha! See, I _knew _there was a problem."

"_If _you would let me finish! Somehow every power cable's been cut at almost the identical spot." There was silence for a second, again, then he added, "Looks deliberate to me."

"Can you fix it?" Mitchell stretched again, and rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Of course I can fix it," McKay's voice was deeply offended.

Mitchell exchanged a look with Bolton and Carter, who'd been following the conversation and were starting to grin. "How long?"

"Oh, I don't know. Years, months, maybe - for anyone else... Me? A couple of hours."

Mitchell rolled his eyes, but then McKay's voice muttered, "To get the lights on, anyway." He didn't wait for the Colonel's response before cutting contact and getting to work.

It was a few minutes later when Major Davidson heard a strange noise outside the open doors... suspiciously like claws scratching on metal. It was quite a loud sound, actually. A continuous, repetative clicking. Davidson looked at the two men standing by the door and asked curtly, "You hear that?" They nodded, and one after the other slipped out into the hallway, searching as they walked for anything that could be making the noise. Eventually they came to the end of the hall and vanished around the corner. Then he heard a shout, and a P-90 firing, followed by a thud and then a clatter, as the gun fell silent.

McKay had jumped up from his work at the sudden gunfire, and watched as Davidson ran towards the sound. Rodney followed him as far as the doorway and called out, "Don't worry about protecting me... I'll just wait here, then."

At the corner, Davidson paused and then was out of sight. When Rodney saw him next, the Major was holding two dog-tags in his hand, and for once the Canadian didn't ask a stupid question. Davidson looked at McKay right back, with a silent, controlled expression

It was quite a loud sound actually, a continuous, repetitive clicking. He looked at the two men standing around the door and asked them, "You hear that?" They nodded, and one after the other slipped out into the hallway, searching as they walked, for anything that could be making the noise. They came to the end of the hall and vanished around the corner. Suddenly he heard a shout and a P-90 firing, followed by a thud and then a clatter, as the gun fell silent.

McKay jumped up from his work at the sudden gunfire in time to see Davidson running towards the sound. Rodney ran to the doorway. "I'll just wait here," he said.  
At the corner, Davidson paused and walked off. when he came back into Rodney's sight he had two dog chains in his hand and for once, McKay didn't ask a stupid question. Davidson looked up at McKay with a controlled expression that would have failed within seconds except the scuttling noise had come back, and what he saw dangling over Rodney's head. He whipped up his P-90 and fired a burst at the insectoid creature which promptly exploded, showering McKay in green goo.

"Hey, did you have to do that?" he moaned.

Davidson grabbed his arm and pulled him back into the power room. He picked up Rodney's torch and set it down facing the doorway. The beam lit up the hall outside, revealing several holes in the ceiling, through which Rodney's hairdresser had dropped. Even as they watched a number more bugs dropped down and began running along the ceiling towards them. Davidson picked them off, one shot at a time, missing some, but also scroing a number of hits, until there were none left.

"Why so careful with the shooting?" demanded McKay.

"Because I only have ..., " he looked at his gun's ammunition round ... "about 20 bullets left and I don't have any other rounds left. After that those things get us." He unclipped his radio from his belt. "Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell, Lieut ..."

Mitchell's voice crackled back to him over the system. "Yeah, Mitchell here. What's up?"

"Sir, I suggest you move everyone back to the gateroom! We've been pinned down by some kind of weird alien bug and I've just lost two men!"

"Does McKay think he can get the power up for the city's systems from in there?"

Davidson looked at McKay, who nodded reluctantly. "Yes sir, but he does, but he's not looking too optimistic."

"That's good news - certain death makes him work better."

"This isn't anything to joke about!"

"Believe me, I'm not - just seal yourselves in there and get this place running again." With that Mitchell cut the transmission. McKay settled back down to work and Davidson stood guard in the doors which wouldn't close. But while they heard the scuttling just out of sight, they saw nothing more of the creatures.


	5. A Quick Turn Around

_A/N: From this point on, the story will unfortunately not be beta-read anymore. For the record...

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**Chapter 5: A Quick Turn Around **

Meanwhile, Daniel, Vala and Teal'c had found nothing. Daniel had a rough idea of where the pods would be - or _should_ be - from the discovery of an immense number of such pods at Atlantis during recent exploration. He also knew that they would take up a massive area but, so far, though they were deep in the place where they should be, they had found nothing. Teal'c wrenched open another door, leading off the main passage, and stepped inside. Cautiously, as always, Daniel and Vala stepped in behind him. Their torches revealed yet another abandoned Ancient lab, displaying a decaying interior, and a damp smell coming from around a large tear in the metal through which a sharp edged rock was visible. Shards of a thousand year old abandoned experiment lay scattered on the ground, adding to the Oblivion Ayleid ruin appearance of the place, with its now dead crystal lights and white walls.

"I do not believe there is anything here," said Teal'c, stating the obvious. His deep voice echoed around the room. The stasis pods were large and unmistakeable.

However, set into the right hand side wall there was a half open door, which on closer expection led to what was apparently one of the city's transporters. They walked up to the door and shone the beams of their torches through into it.

Daniel's radio crackled. He stopped momentarily and said, "Daniel here."

'Hey, you two, hear that noise?' asked Vala, interrupting him.

"Mitchell here. You guys need to get back to the gateroom. Now!" Mitchell's tone carried a note of urgency which the others picked up instantly.

"We are returning, Colonel Mitchell," said Teal'c. Even Daniel followed immediately, though reluctantly, as Teal'c strode away, back the way they had come.

Anticipating the next question, Mitchell explained, "McKay and Davidson ran into some kind of critter - it, or they, or whatever, killed two of Davidson's men. The things have McKay and Davison holed up in the ZPM room." He paused. "On a brighter note, they did find three fully powered ZPMs."

Vala glanced at Daniel and then said accusingly, "I thought you claimed there wasn't a chance some kind of creature killed those men?! What did these things look like anyway?'

'No idea' he replied 'Although from what Mitchell said I'm guessing they look something like...' he paused for a moment, looking ahead '..._that_!'

A large, greenish grey, insect like creature had dropped onto the floor in front of them. It reared onto its back legs raising it up to a good foot above the ground, and clanged back onto the ground running at them. It promptly was reduce to a large pile of shell plates on the ground as gunfire echoed around the room. Teal'c had pushed Daniel aside and opened fire. He flashed his light up onto the ceiling, revealing a number of deep, dark holes. As they looked around, the clicking Vala had already heard began to get louder, and suddenly bugs rushed from around the corner and leapt from the holes in the ceiling.

"Back into the transporter!" shouted Daniel. He lept back through the door in a rush, pulling Vala with him. Teal'c stopped shooting and followed, wrenching the lifeless door of the transporter shut behind them.

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Doctors Lam and Lee had run every test possible on the sample they had been given and the result were clear - the subject hadn´t died of anything even closely related to the disease of the Ancients as they knew it - it seemed instead, against all the odds to be some kind of fast acting (supervenom as Lee had called it) venom. It wasn't even possible it was a poison - it was a full blown venom, like you'd get from a cocktail of the most deadly creatures known to mankind. Whatever had bitten this man was a nasty piece of work, that much was for sure. Regardless, it mean´t that the team to Alterus didn´t stand the slightest chance of running into any kind of problem, as far as they could see. Regardless, Landry would want to know about this.

Well, time for the reports ...


	6. Double Purpose

**Chapter 6: Double Purpose**

High in orbit above the planet that housed Alterus, there was a small disturbance on the view of stars as a number of rather decrepit looking Al-kesh lept out of hyperspace windows. These few ships were a large portion of the remnants of the once impressive fleet sitll under the control of the System Lord Ba'al. After detecting an Ancient signal of some kind - at a guess, a kind of distress signal - the the vague possiblity of finding an Ancient base or, just as good, a warship, had been enough to lure him to this world.

He gazed out the minute "bridge" of the Al-kesh, trying his best to ignore his rather pathetic fleet. He was well aware that this ships weren't even close to a match for even the weakest battleship the Tau'ri could sent at him, let alone an Ori ship. However, an opportunity like this was really too good to miss. He turned in his seat to look at the other two crew members in the ship with him. "So... where's the signal coming from?"

The Ba'al clone seated at a panel which in part dealt with this replied, almost before he had asked, that the signal was coming from the currently shadowed side of the planet, from a distance of several thousand metres under the surface.

With the loss of the Jaffa, Ba'al had recovered quickly, finding that clones and Kull warriors were much more efficient - the clones always seemed to know what he wanted, for obvious reasons (they actually had brains, and a little independance). Besides, Ba'al suspected that a number of the System Lords had not only acted as gods but also believed that they were (Apophis and Socar to name a few), leading to their surprising (in his opinion) destruction by the Tau'ri when the Jaffa rebelled. No, he had never believed himself to be a god, it was merely useful for others to think so. However, he was the last System Lord. Anyway, regardless of what he found at the other end of this signal,his being here served a double purpose...

"Send the location out to the other six ships," he orderd, "and tell them to - ah - keep a eye open for trouble."

His clone was already finishing off the communications. Ba'al smiled slightly and then accellerated his Al/kesh to the lead, inthe general direction from which the signal hwas coming, the other six ships falling into formation behind his. As though to punctuate his command, the small toy dog blanced on a consol bobbed its head in time to the vibrations running through the hull. (Ba'al had long ago found that Tau'ri rubbish like this was amusing.)

As they approached, the planet showed itself to be a lifeless hunk of rock, patches of ice gleaming in the glancing light of its far too distant sun. Directly above where the signal was coming from his and another of the ships began a descent down tot he planet's survface. "We are at a height of 500 metres now," commented Ba'al in his drawling voice.

"Proceeding with scans," replied his own voice, from the clone right behind him.

The signal turned out to be coming from deeper than they had first believed (these blasted Ancient signals, thought Ba'al, they're too strong for their own good), at a depth of around 3500 metres, or so. Various Ba'als throughout the two ships glared impatiantly at the incoming telemetary, waiting for the completion of the scans. When they were finally done, Ba'al tipped his head slightly to one side as thought trying to get a slightly better view of what he was already seeing more than clearly enough. "Well, well", he murmured quietly, "how very interesting."

The scans had uncovered, more than perfectly enough, the hexapod outline of a city of the Ancients. Architecturally imaginative, they were not. "Well, boys," he called out over the intercom, "Just as well we got here first, after all." He leant back in his chair. The dog looked at him, rather dolefully, he supposed... His eyes glowed momentarily. Ba'al's that is. The dog didn't have that much animation. He glanced at it, then finished, "We have work to do."

Ba'al waited, and watched as a third Al-kesh swooped down from orbit, and ringed down laser drilling equipment, four Kull warriors, and one of this clones to keep an eye on them - while they might be oblivious to the weather, and good for moving the heavy gear, the warriors weren't exactly the brightest creatures in the galaxy. Ba'al twiddled a dial to zoom in on the scene, and as if to prove his point he saw his clone waving its hands around wildly as the Kull warriors attemped to assemble the drill mechanism upside down. Idiots. Ba'al smiled smugly to himself - with his clones on the field someone else at least as, or almost as, smart as himself could put up with all that rather than himself having to do it...

The scans had detectd several spots they could ring down to - he'd chosen one in the central tower - and the cutter was being set up so that when it had bored down into the city he would be able to ring men straight down into the centre and eventually, when it suited him, turn the beacon off. But, it didn't suit him right now. Anyway...

The voice to his left broke in on his thoughts. That clone had run a finer scan, to detect life signatures, and he was being handed the results. Ba'al frowned slightly when he had taken in what he was seeing, not quite believing his eyes. In total, he could see eight clear green dots - representing humans (which was difficult in itself to believe) - and to top it off, a swarm of countless thousands of even lesser lifeforms of some kind, represented by a muddy brown-red dot each, merging together on the printout. Personally, Ba'al had always found humans to be lesser lifeforms, but the screen registered them as being more advanced - but what could you do? The plans for his "top of the range" scanners had after all been Asgard tech originally, and then modifed for the Tau'ri's X-304 program.

He shook his head. "Well, well, we didn't get here first, after all. Can we establish a trasmission to the city?"

"I don't like our chances," said the clone to his right, "but I'll give it a go anyway..."

The viewscreen in front of him turned opaque, blotting out the stars, and then turned to statci, like a badly tuned TV - something that Ba'al had never had time for - but it suddenly cleared as someone at the other end accepted the transmission. Oh, he had to laugh - what other choice did he have? - as the face of Colonel Carter looked back at him. "Ah, SG-1," he muttered loudly, "My favourite band of ever maurauding Tau'ri." He paused and smiled again, "Blown up any suns recently?"

"I try not the make a habit of it," she replied. It had only taken her a second to get over the shock and surprise of seeing him.

"What, no words of welcome for an old enemy?" he asked.

"Hey, Ba'aly-boy, how's it goin'?" Suddenly Mitchell's head had found its way onto the screen. "Look, I hate to spoil the greetings and all that, but now it's the time for tea and cookies, okay? We've kind of got a bug problem down here, nothing out of the ordinary, but unless you want to help..."

Ba'al cut him off, impatiently, "So I've already seen. And yes, I will help. I admit, that you and your team's experience in Ancient technology vastly outstrips mine - especially your possession of the Ancient gene. I am prepared to send down some Kroyta gas weapons with which you can flood the city's systems. In fact, I will do this even without your aid, but if you help you may save the lives of your isolated friends in various sectors of the city, who I can see from the scanners are trapped in a most inconvenient manner." He paused, apparently for dramatic effect, smiled charmingly and continued, "So. What do you say?"

Mitchell stood there, thinking the offer over, while Carter started saying, "We'll work togeth-"

Ba'al cut her off. "Excellent. I shall be ready very soon." He halted the transmission.

He'd stopped because a blip onhis screens signalled the arrival of an Ori warship.


	7. Sanctus, Sanctus

**Chapter 7: Sanctus, Sanctus... **

"About time, too," said Ba'al. "Take us into orbit to meet them."

He felt only a small lurch as the inertial dampeners took the main blow of the Al-kesh's sudden lift through the atmosphere, back into orbit, and past the other four ships which had remained in orbit. The other four fell back into a wedge shape behind him, their sublight engines propelling them through the void of space, towards the bright outline of the Ori warship, its curved shape momentarily silhouetted against the brightness of the planet's sun glinting from around the edge of the ice world.

The Ba'al to this right informed him that the Ori warship was trying to establish contact with them. "Put them through, then," he said. Then he paused, thinking for a moment, "But transmit through the Al-kesh furthest to our left."

The view screen once again turned opaque, only this time, the excellent reception showed the pale, hooded face of a Prior of the Ori.

"Hallowed are the Ori," intoned Ba'al with a small, sarcastic smile playing at the edges of his mouth.

"Hallowed are they indeed," returned the Prior in a deep, slow voice. "However _you_, Ba'al, are an enemy of the Believers..."

"Ah. My fame has spread even to the legions of the Ori."

"Your _infamy_ is indeed known to us. The Ori see all," continued the Prior without changing his voice.

"Sanctus... sanctus... sanctus..." muttered Ba'al to himself.

The Prior didn't seem to notice, or if he did, he made no sign of it, but simply finished, "and they have told those faithful to them of their true enemies."

"Alright, you know all about me. Naturally, of course," said Ba'al, his eyes flickering momentarily to a screen to his right, "So. Why don't we hear a little about you instead? You don't seriously believe the Ori will help you ascend when you did, do you?"

"As it is written in the tale of the dog and the sheep in the Book of Origen -"

Ba'al suddenly seemed to have had enough. After glancing once again at the screen to his right, he butted in brusquely with the words, "I will give you your chance to surrender now." His voice was completely calm.

This statement in the middle of his lecture seemed to snap the Prior back to reality. Still, Ba'al could see that he was tempted to laugh at it, but obviously his years as a Prior made him withstrain himself. Instead, he limited his reaction to a grimace-like smile. "You, with five tiny, inferior ships, _dare _to threaten a warship of the Ori?"

The communications died abruptly, and Ba'al's fleet scattered as a yellow beam of energy lanced out from the Ori warship to the ship furthest to the left; the ship which had been relaying the communications. The force of the beam snapped it in half before it exploded violently.

"Shields to one hundred percent!" shouted out one of the crew Ba'als as the four remaining ships close in on the Ori mothership and opened fire, their red cannon blasts scattering over the surface of its shields. Another yellow beam shot from the fore section of the mothership, but missed, as the Al-kesh came in as close to the shields of the sluggish warship as possible. However, even as a second Al-kesh was clipped by laser fire and was sent spinning off into space, Ba'al didn't call for a loss. He seemed to be waiting for something...

* * *

The Ba'al clone aboard the cloaked Al-kesh watched as the ships of his fellow Ba'als spun around the never weakening shield of the warship. But he could not help them. He turned away from the viewscreen and the battle, left his chair and walked - slightly stooped - to the Al-kesh's right airlock, where he could stand straight again. The other two Ba'al crew members stood there with a round, circular device about the height of the ceiling. Their arguing was _very _irritating.

"Can't two identical people agree on anything?" he demanded. "We're late, gentlemen. Team 2 are ready for a lock already, and all you can do is argue about a plan agreed on _weeks _ago."

"If the anti-prior device doesn't work..."

"It _will _work," said the pilot Ba'al, looking down at the modified oval device strapped to a belt around his waist. "Tau'ri teams have been using them effectively for months."

"Fine. We're ready then," agreed one of the other Ba'als angrily. He walked to the other side of the device and punched in a sequence on it's side. "Establishing wormhole connection... _now_." As though to punctuate his words, he pulled a green lever. The event horizon of the tiny gate formed, whooshed out and punched straight through the trinnium plated outer hull of the ship. On the other side of the ship the same thing happened as Ba'al's mini-gates connected. Ba'al stepped out of the grey interior of the Al-kesh through the hole in the warship's side. Behind him, the ship's twenty Kull warriors piled out looking like giant, shiny black beetles.

Suddenly the air was full of blue fire as a group of Warriors of the Ori rounded the corner and spotted them. The Kull warriors responded in kind, raising their arms, withstanding countless blasts from Ori staff weapons and firing off multiple red streams of energy. Ba'al hit two warriors at the same time with his zat, the blue energy playing over them as they fell together.

The fight was over seconds after it had begun. "Stay here and guard the Al-kesh, you five. You, Ba'al-whoever, take _those _five towards the rear of the ship, and I'll take these ten to go and get the Prior." Without even waiting to see if his orders were followed, he turned and marched off in the direction of the command bridge, the ten Kull warriors falling into step around him. The fact that even as they marched almost half the distance to the bridge without meeting resistance told Ba'al that an ambush or at least a massive counter strike was being marshalled. They rounded a corner and Ba'al leapt backwards as blue weapons' fire burst out from the far end of the corridor. However, when he looked around the corner and shot off a bolt of energy, he saw it splatter across the surface of a green energy shield of some kind. He grimaced. A stand-off. _They_ couldn't damage his warriors; _he_ couldn't get through their shield. Yet.

* * *

McKay glared in frustration at the ZPM connections. Firstly he'd just tried re-wiring the system with the old leads. But the metal wires had actually _crumbled_ when he'd touched them. So, he'd had to pull the whole system apart and stick in new wires, connections, etc, etc, etc... all of which for some reason had been left in a sort of set of drawers. At a guess, they were more for regular maintenance, as the simple gear wasn't really more than enough to anything but patch it up. To make it worse, Mitchell had just called Davidson for a report ("I'm getting there but if you want this done before we get eaten, leave the Great Mind alone") and (as if there weren't enough problems) had informed them that the System Lord Ba'al had just arrived in orbit.

McKay didn't like the way that those things had stopped coming after Davidson had shot them. To him, this implied above average intelligence, something he didn't particularly like in nasty bugs, monsters, or - well, not much at all except himself, come to think of it. Oh well. Nearly finished now.

* * *

Outside the door of the transporter, Daniel could hear the loud clicking sound of the bugs crawling around, trying to find a way in. He had already seen the corrosiveness of their venom - it was only a matter of time before they got in.

The radio crackled and Mitchell's voice came through, echoing slightly in the confined area. "Hey, you guys, you nearly back yet?"

"No, Colonel Mitchell," answered Teal'c, "It would seem we are trapped."

"Oh - right. Okay, what?" asked Mitchell.

"Those bug things attacked us," explained Daniel, "trapped us in one of the city's transporters."

"Well, in that case, you're in luck," said Mitchell, "If he's _really _nearly there, then 'great mind'" - you could almost hear the sarcastic 'diddums' in his voice - "should have power back soon, and you can teleport to us here." He stopped for a moment, then continued, "I've locked down the control room as best I could, set up some surprises for if our little friends show up, and Carter's going to dial out..."

Vala broke in suddenly, "If the bugs turn up, use zats."

"Why?" demanded both Daniel and Mitchell at once.

"It would seem that weapons of the Tau'ri work effectively against these creatures..." began Teal'c.

"Yes, yes," butted Vala back in, "but a zat energy beam spreads out over a metal surface, so we can take out half a dozen of these little blokes each shot." She smiled broadly at her own cleverness, and Daniel nodded slightly, while Teal'c merely raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, good idea," agreed Mitchell. "The other thing is, we got a call from Ba'al."

If possible, Teal'c's eyebrow lifted slightly higher on hearing this, before returning to normal.

"Gave the usual 'I'll help you while ever you're helping me' speech," continued Mitchell chirpily, "so we've agreed to position Kroyta gas in the ventilation for him. That should take care of our bug problem. Um, wait," said Mitchell, stopping and listening, "Gotta go, guys, the gate's dialling."

With that, he left Daniel, Vala and Teal'c fingering their zats in the dark.


	8. Back in Contact

**Chapter 8: Back in Contact**

The seventh chevron locked even as Mitchell reached the place where Carter and Bolton were standing.

"It's earth's IDC ," confirmed Bolton.

"Not that we could do anything if it wasn't," muttered Mitchell. The wormhole whooshed out and then stabilised.

"Receiving visual, audio … now," said Carter. She twiddled a dial and Landry's face appeared on a screen over the panel.

"Hello SG-1," boomed his voice over the speaker system. "How's it coming?"

"Well sir," began Mitchell. "We have found 3 full ZPMs ….."

"Great job!!"

" … however, the city's overrun with some kind of giant predator bug and Davidson's team has already lost two men."

"Oh," said Landry, his excited enthusiasm vanishing and his face falling. "That bad already is it? Should I send SG-3 through?

"No," answered Mitchell. "For some twisted reason Ba'al turned up in orbit a little while ago, offered to help us if we'd help him. The usual thing. We've agreed and we know he's scanning the place, so sending in more men would only agitate things. Apparently he's planning to ring down some Kroyta gas soon which we can …"

"Kroyta gas?" interrupted Landry with an enquiring tone.

"Yeah, Carter says it's some kind of bug killing agent …"

Here Carter broke in, "The Goa'uld have been using it for years to tame a planet's insect population down to a manageable level. We've modified it into a gas known as AR-16, specifically for use against Prior bugs."

" … yeah, that," continued Mitchell, "which we're gonna put in the ventilation. Hope McKay gets major systems back on-line and take them all out at once – but we need Ba'al's help on this."

"OK," conceded Landry. "Now, I'm guessing you've already guessed then, but the plague didn't kill the Alterans, a venom did … and I'll bet it was from your insects."

"Yes," confirmed Carter, "We'd figured that …"

"Also, McKay and Davidson are trapped in the ZPM room and Teal'c, Vala and Daniel are in a transporter waiting for power to come on." said Mitchell over the top of Carter.

"So you're sure there's nothing to be done?"

"Nothing."

"Alright then, SG-1, good luck!" On that note he cut the transmission and the wormhole disengaged.

Mitchell looked around the large, dark room. "Alright, Carter, Bolton, I want to know how Ba-al found us in the first place."

Silence reigned except for Davidson's pacing as McKay worked on the last connection. Soon he'd be finished thought Davidson and they could run (correction, McKay could run heavily while he jogged slowly)to the nearest transporter – just along the hallway and get the hell out of there. Should be easy, actually.

Suddenly, multiple things happened at once … McKay sat back, apparently satisfied saying, "Well … that's that – everybody thank me for the miracle later." … the city hummed to life around them, lights flickered on , and with a tearing of metal, 12 perfectly round holes were punched through the room's ceiling and a number of bugs dropped through each one of them. McKay leapt to his feet and tried to pull his pistol from the holster on his thigh. It wouldn't budge. "Oh no…," he moaned and jumped backwards, turned and climbed up onto the ZPM console. Several bugs spotted this tactic and climbed up after him. A flash from Davidson's gun and one fell, while McKay's heavy boot knocked another down.

"Out of the room!" roared Davidson.

McKay hesitated a moment, and then leapt rather spectacularly over towards the door. Davison fired another 3 shots, one of which hit home, the other two hitting dangerously close to McKay's newly repaired wiring. McKay saw this out of the corner of his eye and winced, then dived into the hallway with Davidson backing quickly after him.

The noise stopped and nothing followed.

"Why'd they stop coming?" asked McKay nervously.

"Who cares?" came Davidson's response. He led the way out and around the corner and then stopped. Something was glinting green in front of him ….

There was a dull thud as McKay bumped into him, despite the fist Davidson had raised into the air as he stopped.

"What's wrong?" squeaked McKay.

Davidson didn't answer, but instead, swung his gun out in front of him. It caught in an almost invisible, sticky fibre stretched out across the passage. Like a spider web, thought Davison, only solid. He fired a bullet at it. The web stretched and them snapped back into position, with the bullet held tightly inside the web.

"Wow!" said McKay. "If it weren't for the meat eating bugs, I'd come back to sample that stuff …"

Davidson ignored the comment and marked back around the corner. Another green web was now sprawled from ceiling to floor. "Blast …" said Davidson gloomily. "We're trapped!"

Ba'al watched with ever increasing annoyance as one of his Kull warriors fell to its knees. "Back!" he yelled to it. It stumbled behind the ranks of its other nine fellow warriors. "Four in front and 5 behind."

Seconds later, he was about to change his mind and call for a retreat as yet another of his 'invincible' warriors stumbled … Ori staff weapons were more powerful than he'd anticipated … when another stream of red light burst out, but this one came from behind the shield. The warriors of the Ori turned, tried to avoid the red fire, but too late. Another party of 10 warriors and a Ba'al appeared around the far corner, from behind the shield. Team 2, noted Ba'al. He ran up towards the shield and his warriors followed him, two of them limping heavily, but back on their feet, as the warriors on the other side blasted the area of walls that seemed to be producing the shield. It flickered, faltered and vanished.

"How did you get through the shield?" shouted team 1's Ba'al.

The other Ba'al smiled smugly at having figured something out before his clone. "Stun grenade," he stated, as if it were the most obvious thing in the universe. "The shield'd block any attack, but it didn't block light or sound, Then once they'd been stunned, I cut …" He held up a small laser cutter, "… a hole through the wall and zatted the generator." He smiled again. "Here all minds are equal, but it would seem some are more equal than …."

He was abruptly cut of as another group of warriors of the Ori arrived, who rapidly met the same treatment as the last group.

"Nearly there now!" shouted the first Ba'al and led the way up the passage to a door, inlaid more heavily than usual with gold and jewels. The door swung open noiselessly …

In front of a massive set of control panels, which covered the surface of the whole room sat a Prior, desperately struggling with the ship's controls. On sensing the door opening, he swung around and snatched up his staff and staggered to his feet.

The leading Ba'al commanded his warriors not to open fire and then looked at the Prior with an expression that quite clearly said, "Well, then?"

The Prior's staff glowed feebly in his hand and them died. His face contorted with anger, frustration and perhaps a faint hint of fear as he whispered, "What have you done?"

Ba'al walked forward, ignoring him. "Controlled with Prior mind powers, I suppose?" he said, admiring the massive ship's advanced systems. "Well, only one thing for it then," he continued, turning to the Prior. "You'll have to help us, my friend."

"Never …" hissed the Prior defiantly.

"That's where you're wrong." Ba'al's eyes flashed. "Very wrong indeed …"


	9. All too Easy

**Chapter 9: All Too Easy**

As the transporter hummed to life around them and the lights came on, a huge amount of tension left the room. Sensing their presence, the panel in the wall slid open, revealing a map of the city and all operating transporter locations, represented as glowing red dots. Daniel hit the one closest to the control room, and the sound of clicking stopped, even as the doors hissed apart.

Blinking in the now strong lights of the corridor, they made their way to the gateroom. Vala looked around the corridor, rather put out by the lack of action. Now she knew what was out there, … like just a couple of bugs … she'd just as soon one or two popped their ugly little heads into view. Anyway …

The door to the gateroom opened in front of them and they walked through.

Daniel took in the now functioning room, data streaming across the screens and a scan of the area around the planet showing what appeared to be a space battle. Mitchell lowered his zat as the door hissed shut again behind them. "Hiya," he drawled, "great to see you back in one piece."

"Yes, yes," answered Daniel. "What's that?" Mitchell followed his gaze to the screen. "Ba'al's bitten off more than he can chew. He's gone into battle against an Ori warship with four Al-kesh."

"Four Al-kesh!" exclaimed Vala. "He must be even madder than I thought! Then again, even Katesh thought he was slightly bonkers …"

"Yes, well, we can discuss how mad Ba'al is later …" started Mitchell.

"And what could be _so_ much more important?" asked Vala.

Mitchell continued, despite her glare, "… but right now we have to go rescue McKay and Davidson." He paused to look over to where Bolton was standing, handing tools to a hand rising up into sight above the control panels. "How's it coming, Carter?"

The other three were almost surprised when an answer came back, as they hadn't even realised that she was there. "How's it comin'? "

"Alright actually … I think we've found our problem. One of those bugs got in here and it's tripped on a wire … connected to the distress signal … I've turned it off, but …"

"So at least we shouldn't get any more guests," said Daniel, pleased.

"Oh, no …" continued Carter. She stood up, holding something half melted and a strange shade of blue, in her hand.

"That's not what I think it is, is it?" asked Daniel.

"What is it?" asked Mitchell rather wearily.

"This is a major control crystal. We can't dial out!" said Carter grimly. She tapped in a co-ordinate on the DHD, but instead of the gate spinning, nothing happened.

Mitchell grimaced. "Well, we'll have to dial out manually then." He breathed in deeply, "but first, Teal'c, Daniel, Vala, let's go save the brain."

As the bugs broke into the transporter and found it empty the Overmind almost lost its patience, Well, now it had proven stealth would not so easily take this prey, especially now that the brightness was back. Perhaps a more direct method was in order…

The transporter delivered them to the corridor leading to the ZPM room, in which McKay and Davidson were trapped. Mitchell peered around the corner. Davidson stood, looking up at the ceiling and around at the walls, while McKay sat on the floor in a very un-McKay like manner. Amazing he had managed to get down, bad back and all. Mitchell walked around, waving the others up behind him.

Davidson spotted him and shouted, "Stop!" Mitchell stopped suddenly, with Vala bumping into him. McKay glanced up and waved rather glumly. Mitchell was on the verge of asking "What?" when Vala said, "Hey guys, look at this." Mitchell focussed on the item she was pointing at, mere inches from his face. A bullet hung suspended in seemingly mid air, but then he saw the greenish glint. Some kind of web spanned from the floor to the ceiling.

"A web thing …"

"Just like I said."

"Yeah, well," said Mitchell, and was going to continue, only that McKay didn't take this comment too well.

"See, see! Nobody ever takes a word I say seriously," he said accusingly. "Not even in life and… and … death moments …" He trailed off as a scratching noise, like a zombie tapping on the roof of your car, on a dark night, started up. "Just cut the thing … Did you bring a blowtorch or something?"

"Spot on," replied Daniel. Teal'c marched forward, hefting some kind of bizarre Ancient contraption.

"Are you sure that thing's actually safe?" queried Mitchell.

"Indeed," answered Teal'c, as he switched it on. "Colonel Carter believes so, at any rate."

"Yes," said Vala evilly. "She reckoned there was only a small chance of it exploding … 50-50 I think it was…" McKay took several quick steps backwards and then glared at Mitchell as he covered up a laugh rather poorly. Teal'c began cutting, a thin beam of yellow energy digging into the web. At first it resisted, but then darkened along the edges and slowly, a slit appeared. It quickly grew and soon Davidson could slip through, Daniel holding open the hole with the barrel of his gun. McKay followed him and then stopped, torn between two ideas. The first and original thought won.

"Ah … um … Teal'c," he said rather nervously, looking up at the Jaffa. Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Could you cut me a sample of this stuff?" Teal'c swung the laser cutter around, nearly knocking McKay over, and cut out a circular piece. "Great …," said McKay, stuffing the sample into a ziplock bag and hastily following the others into the transporter.

Ba'al glared up at the sky. Why he'd consented to be the one watching the drilling, he didn't know, but he had. But what the hell was going on? He turned his gaze to the four warriors preparing to lift the mobile ringing platform into place over the hole in the ground. Nice and easy he thought, as the warriors swung it smoothing across and … with all luck on his side, into place. Once again he glared up. Well, he thought, I'll just have to go down myself then. He ordered the warriors to each pick up their assigned canister of gas and then moved onto the ringing platform. He closed his eyes momentarily and hit the button to ring down.

Crash!

The noise echoed around the control room, followed by the sound of rings activating. Carter and Bolton turned to the gate. A smoking half MALP sat next to the vanishing rings, which quickly left behind Ba'al and four Kull warriors.

"Oh no …," said Carter. "Supersoldiers!"

"Sorry about that," said Ba'al, waving his hand in the direction of the half MALP, "but you really shouldn't leave those things lying around like that …"

At this moment the others arrived back.

"Heard a noise …," Daniel paused and looked down the stairs. "Oh, you're here."

"Yes, Daniel Jackson … so, where did you want your gas?"

Mitchell stepped aside to allow Ba'al to come up the stairs and then turned to McKay. "Well, come on McKay – as the expert here – where do you say?"

"Well, firstly, three points," said McKay, glancing at Ba'al and almost completely ignoring the question. "A, is he safe?" he queried, glancing at Ba'al. "B, are they safe?" he continued pointing at the warriors. "And C, am I safe?" Ba'al's eyes flashed.

"Um …, nope, not particularly," answered Vala.

"Just answer the question McKay …"

"OK, OK, just let me think …" Mitchell could almost see the plans of the city flowing behind McKay's eyes as he thought it over. "Alright; at the base of the tower there's the central ventilation point. It would flood gas through the whole city – I think .."

"Rodney …," growled Mitchell. (Maybe he had learned something from Sheppard after all.)

"I'm sure, OK – is that what you want to hear?"

"Yes, McKay, that's exactly what I want to hear. … OK, Teal'c, you and I will take McKay and Ba'al down to this ventilation system … Everyone else – hold the fort.

From the place where the transporter had delivered them, McKay had estimated the ventilation system to be several minutes walk. However, he'd made this assumption from the condition of the rest of the city, which was near perfect. But this deeper, lower section of the city had taken massive amounts of damage over the years, because of the weight of the city and the rocks pressing down upon it. Some parts of the city were buckled beyond recognition.

"As I just said, Ba'al, beyond recognition," retaliated McKay when Ba'al commented on his navigation skills, after they took yet another wrong turn. The Kull warriors stomped along behind them, marching in unison, never seeming to tire.

"Yes, Doctor McKay, I heard you," replied Ba'al. "I'll try to get us there in less than three days, if you'd give me that, but no, the all knowing human just ploughs straight on, leading us ever deeper …"

At that McKay decided he'd had enough. "Take it then," he snapped, tossing the handheld map device to Ba'al, who caught it deftly as it spun towards him. It died in his hand. He shook it, frowned and then assumed his smile again. "Ha! Gene controlled. Well, continue on, Doctor McKay," he said, handing it back.

"OK, left here," muttered McKay and started up a passage that looked like a cardboard box that'd been hit by a small cargo train.

"It'll be a wonder if the ventilation even still works," mouthed Mitchell to Teal'c.

"Indeed."

Several corridors later, many of which would be better described as hollowed out lumps of metal, Mitchell's radio hissed and Daniel's voice came through. "Mitchell?"

"Yeah, Mitchell here," he answered, "What's up?"

"Well, not to rush you or anything, but that gas would be nice now!"

Mitchell nearly tripped over a cluster of broken pipes lying across the ground as he followed Ba'al along a narrow passage.

"The bugs just turned up," said Daniel, who'd paused momentarily to fire off a burst from his zat. "Those explosives you rigged up around the place held off the first wave, but now we're down to the zats."

"Yeah, well, I thin we're nearly there, only Ba'al and McKay keep arguing about the direction …"

"OK, then … good luck …"

Daniel cut the communications and gazed around the room in the momentary calm. Mitchell's explosives had brought the whole place down, almost sealing every opening the bugs could come through, slowing them down, but he could already hear them burning their way through the ceiling now. He pointed his zat at the ceiling and fired. Somewhere above him there was a thud as something heavy fell to the ground.

"OK, everybody, fire at the ceiling!" he shouted. "Stop them from getting in that way!" All around him, blue energy bolts shot up hitting the ceiling. Blue static sparkled all over the surface and presumably on the other side, as more thuds followed.

Across the room from them, rubble was pushed forwards and a row of bugs piled out, followed by rank after rank swarming out and across the walls. SG-1 and Davidson and Bolton stood at the far end of the room, firing shot after shot into a quickly advancing black swarm …"

Finally they'd arrived in a large circular room, in which seven silver grey cylinders were projecting from the ground; six spaced around the room and one in the centre of it. "OK," started McKay as they walked through the door. "Each one of these regulates a different part of the city." He turned to Ba'al, who motioned the Jull warriors forward.

"So, one would be for the city's central tower …," started Ba'al.

"While each of the others, does a drive pod each."

"Drive pod?" asked Mitchell.

"Well, when the city flew each 'wing' contained an engine cluster," retorted McKay flat out. "Anyway," he continued and hit a sequence on a panel in the otherwise smooth surface of the central cylinder, "we need to connect a canister to the central one and one to tow others and so on." The top of the column rose off, exposing multiple control crystals, wiring and several pipes attached to a secondary column, which had risen with the lid. Ba'al moved up beside him and watched as McKay quickly cut into one of these pipes and pushed a thick rubbery tube into the hole. Ba'al had a warrior position a canister next to it and connected it up to the other end of the tube and then undid the seal.

"That's it?" asked Mitchell rather incredulously. Somehow these things always looked so simple. McKay nodded and moved to the next column and began the same process over again. The only noise in the bright room was a gentle hissing of gas.

"All to the simple, hey Teal'c?" He paused for a moment. "I just hope we got it in time."

"Indeed, Colonel Mitchell," came the steady reply.


	10. One Flash and You're Ash

**Chapter 10: One Flash And You're Ash**

Far above in, the gate control room the oncoming tide of insects stopped suddenly, falling from the ceiling and walls and landing on the ground. Daniel looked out across the room, and Vala stepped cautiously towards the door.

"Looks like they've all just keeled over" she shouted back into the room. Daniel followed her to the door and looked down the hallway. Piles of the things lay all around the room, the odd twitch here and there but aside from that, motionless.

Davidson flicked his radio, and spoke "Hey, Mitchell, Mckay. Great job!"

"Thankyou Major!" crackled back Mitchell's voice. "So we got it in time?"

"Yes you did," replied Daniel. "Offer my thanks to McKay It was pretty ugly up here until that gas turned up."

At the ventilation chamber McKay was grinning self satisfied. "I should thank you, Doctor – that's the first time you've acknowledged me saving your life…"

"Yes Daniel, try not to make a habit of it" Vala could be heard saying in the background. Mitchell grinned to himself. "Daniel, Carter, we're heading up now" Mitchell said, and turned back to the others. "So, ah which way was it again?" he asked, grinning at Mckay. Mckay scowled at him, and pointed back in the direction they'd come in. He stomped out, followed closely by Teal'c and Ba'al and the four heavily marching warriors. Mitchell eyed them off rather curiously before following them. Something was up here – Ba'al was being _too_ helpful – but what the problem really was he couldn't put his finger on it.

Back in orbit, two new hyperspace windows arrived on the now calm scene, Ori warships bursting through, joining the original attacker. The ships closed in on one another and then slowed, the distance between the ships now decreasing at an ever decreasing rate, coming into optimal communications range and then stopping, the flare of their reverse thrusts momentarily brightening the area around the ships, a bluish aura forming around them. On board the original ship the Prior straightened in his chair, and clutched the staff somewhat tighter in his hand, as if perhaps a little unsure what to do with it. In front of the Prior the viewscreen lost its transparency and then solidified into the image of another Prior. The Prior from the first ship seemed for a moment to _smirk_ and then his face formed back into the more typical, emotionless state that Priors managed to keep their faces in all the time. "Hallowed are the Ori" said the first Prior.

"Hallowed are the Ori indeed" intoned the second Prior. What is it, do these people memorise the book of boring Prior greetings? thought the first Prior, managing just to keep his face right, and keep the ship stable.

"It seems the battle is over" said Prior 2.

"Indeed it would seem so" replied the first Prior. "However, I request your assistance – I am only newly converted and I am having some… difficulty with my power over the ship. Just to prove his point, Ba'al let the ship fire it's engines once, barely missing one of the other ships. "I believe the ship's systems to have been damaged in the battle.

"I will come to your ship to assess any damage" replied the Prior, rising from his chair and cutting the communications.

Two Ba'al clones stood watching the rings on board the Ori warship, waiting for them to activate, bringing yet another Prior and his ship into their trap. The remaining Al-kesh had been brought onboard the warship, to cover any signs of the true nature of the outcome of the battle, the floating wreckage of those ships that had been destroyed providing ample evidence in favour of their lie. With a sudden and sharp hiss the panelling covering the rings opened, and the bright light of the ring transportation filled the room. Almost instantly the air was filled with fire, and the four guards escorting the Prior dropped.

"You cannot face the might of the Ori!" shouted the Prior and whipped his staff in the general direction of the nearest Ba'al. Nothing happened.

"Oh, you people do like to go on…" the Ba'al said and zatted him.

Back up on the bridge the Prior Ba'al noticed the remaining warship raising its shields, and charging weapons. His staff glowed, and the ship sprung to life around him, and established a weapons lock on the enemy. The warship fired, and the target exploded, without shields – how would Mitchell put it he thought – target practise?

He sat back in the throne like control chair with a self satisfied smile out of place on the Prior's wrinkled face. And so. He had captured and destroyed 3 Ori warships, something of which the Tau'ri could not claim to have done. And now, he had a formidable armada once again. And perhaps he could keep it this time.

Back in Alterus Colonel Carter had noticed something wrong. The gas was wrong – it had done what it was supposed to, but now…

"…it's changing" she said to Daniel.

"What exactly do you mean – changing?" he asked, with a rather perplexed look on his face.

"Well" she said, looking towards Bolton "somehow it's chemical makeup is changing – I've never seen anything like it before… Theoretically, I can't see how it's possible."

"But it's happening anyway."

"Right" she answered.

"So," began Daniel "what's it changing into?"

"Alright Doctor," answered Bolton "It's changing into some kind of heavy hydrogen like gas – I've never seen a gas like it before – but I can tell you one thing – It'd be highly explosive."

Davidson grimaced, and asked "So, you're telling us this whole place could go up any moment now"

"Well, it hasn't completely changed yet sir" replied Bolton, "But yes – that's exactly right. Take an hour, and this whole place could go up."

"Wait, wait…"said Mckay "you're telling me the city is filling up with some kind of explosive gas?"

Behind him Ba'al smirked, and stopped walking. "Actually, Doctor Mckay it _was _Kroyta gas – however it did contain a certain element that has been manipulating it with Alterus's atmosphere and it should be at a critical point within perhaps half an hour."

The other three turned around and stared at him, Mitchell and Teal'c raising their guns and pointing them at him. "OK, Ba'al" said Mitchell "reverse it or else…"

Ba'al laughed. "Or else what Colonel? You can't shoot me – with a spark it from one of you're weapons it doesn't matter whether the gas is at a critical point. It'll still be a case of – how to put it – 'one flash and you're ash?'"

Mitchell lowered his gun, and so did Teal'c.

"Why are you doing this?" asked Mckay.

"Well I thought it was rather obvious" said Ba'al "If I can't have this city then neither shall you."

He dropped his gaze to a band around his wrist and hit in a sequence on it. He looked up, waved, and vanished into a beam of blue light, along with the four Kull warriors.

"There he goes again…"said Mitchell

"When did Ba'al get Asgard beaming tech?" asked Mckay.

"I don't know, but regardless, this isn't good" said Mitchell. "How long till this place gets to critical point and blow up?" he asked Mckay.

"Ah…" he said looking at his Ancient scanner "I'd say... twenty-odd minutes."

"Oh boy – we need to get moving and get out of here…"


	11. Outa Here

**Chapter 11: Outa Here… **

Even as they raced towards the control room, Carter, and Bolton worked on the gate, while Daniel and Vala did their best to stay out of the way. The gate wasn't giving in easily, and hadn't budged an inch since they'd started. Not even the manual dialling method they had previously used wa doing anything – the gate seemed to have been welded in place.

"Ba'al" said Daniel. "wasn't he down by the gate earlier"

Vala tilted her head to one side, and answered "Well, more likely it was one of his warriors – they're excellent at breaking things – have you noticed?"

"Yes, well" answered Daniel, irritated "warriors, Ba'al same thing isn't it? I mean, they are his warriors, and they don't exactly think for themselves do they – so, same thing really…"

"No it isn't…" Vala snapped back.

"Anyway, those warriors aren't bright enough to string two words together, let alone disable a Stargate…"

"Give it a rest you two!" said Carter, checking her watch and then continued to poke rather aimlessly among the gate control crystals "At risk of sounding like Mckay we may only have 15 minutes left and I need to concentrate…"

"What was that about me?" asked Mckay, stomping heavily into the room. "Someone complimenting me again?" He looked around the room, but the five there seemed to be impervious to this comment.

Mitchell entering behind him rolled his eyes, and then asked "So, what are our options?"

Carter shook her head "Unless we can get the gate working again – none."

"Well, there's my classic list of death options for this type of thing…" said Mckay.

"Ok, so, everybody pull together." He looked around and the seven people in the room with him – today his team. "So, we need a plan."

Mitchell walked down to the gate. _Looks like it'd work_ he thought, _but obviously not… _He looked up to the command up the stairs as Mckay clicked his fingers several times, looking around.

"Can we vent the air?" asked Mckay. Even Vala seemed to find this rather stupid, asking "Where to?"

"Oh – that's right…"

Mitchell looked up. The drill hole from Ba'al's laser cutter stretched away into the distance.

"Hey guys – forgive me if this is really stupid – but can we get out through there?" He pointed up in to the hole, stretching upwards through the rocky crust of the planet, all the way through to the planet's icy surface.

"Well, it is _possible _Mitchell, but…" started Carter

"…unless you've seen some spare rockets lying around to strap to our backs we're not getting out that way" finished Mckay sarcastically, "that is as ridiculous an idea as venting the gas was…" He stopped, a thought suddenly coming to him. "The jumpers! This place is exactly like Atlantis, right?" he stopped, and looked around at the others. Carter and Bolton nodded and he continued. "Ba'al's drill… He's drilled straight though the puddlejumper bay – maybe we can fly one out of here!"

"Ok, great, a plan. Better and better" said Mitchell. He turned to Carter "would you say that hole's big enough to fly one of these Ancient ships out of?"

"Well," she said "I'm not really sure how big these ships are, but…"

"Yes it is" said Mckay "and so our chances of survival increase…by a fractional percentage at any rate – but that is a definite improvement…" He stopped again, and looked around, and pointed "This way to the jumpers."

Mitchell's gaze took in the Puddlejumper bay, two levels of ships with 5 in each level, a hole almost exactly in the centre of the ships, where the bay's roof exit would normally be. He glanced at his watch, and then hurried aboard Mckay's chosen ship. 7 minutes until the explosion…

He flinched momentarily. Mckay was arguing with Lieutenant Bolton…

"…but I've never even flown anything before…"

"…I'm sure you'll do great…"

"…I mean, I can barely even get the car round the block back home on Earth…"

Vala could also be heard saying "truly remarkable technology – Do you actually know what this is worth if you have the right contacts, Daniel"

"No"

"Well, I do have the right contacts…"

Daniel faced the jumper's hatch as it closed, and answered no further.

"Are you actually listening to me?"

"No"

Mckay spoke loudly, over the noise, this time to the rest of the ship. "Ok, everybody, here's the deal. I've finally convinced Lieutenant Baton here (Bolton glared at him) to fly the ship, because despite what everybody seems to think I can't be everywhere at once, and I'm needed to keep power levels from failing completely…"  
" Well, I could do that…" began Carter.

Mckay turned to Carter, and answered "Forgive me, blue eyes, but despite the fact your almost as smart as I am I have far more experience with this technology then you do, and so I'm needed back here. See, I'm needed everywhere… You can help if you want to of course… but ultimately saving us will depend on me."

"And Bolton here, of course" said Mitchell.

"Yes well…" said Mckay, irritatedly "5 minutes left people, so let's get flying shall we?"

Bolton rested her hand on the control panel in front of her. As had the rest of the ship around her it sprung to life, and she tried to listen as Mitchell quickly ran her over the controls needed to lift the ship out and keep it steady as they made their way towards the surface.

"Ok," said Mitchell. "First, move us into position." He put his hand over hers on the controls.

Suddenly the ship's engines fired, as she concentrated on moving forwards, pushing forwards on the control Mitchell had guided her hand to.

"Power's stable for the moment people, but the sooner we get out of here the better" came Mckay's voice from the back of the ship.

"Why _would_ you say that?" asked Vala " I mean, the whole place is about to explode and the ship's going to run out of power. Why would we want to get out of here?"

Bolton managed to extend the drive pods, and turn the ship into a vertical position. The ship began to climb up into the dark shaft, slowly at first, but then more and more quickly.

"I'm actually doing it!" she said, amazed.

"Yes you are." said Mitchell.

"Yes, we're all doing well" said Mckay. "But could we do well a little faster perhaps? We have 2 minutes before this place reaches critical point. When it does the explosion will shoot out of the this hole and rip the surface off the planet in this entire area!"

"It won't go any faster" answered Bolton angrily "In fact, this thing's losing power if anything. Maybe if you kept you're mind on keeping power flowing and stopped criticising my flying skills, after a 5 minute crash course labelled "Mckay and Co's guide to Puddle jumper flight".

"Hang on!" said Mitchell. "Something coming up ahead, some kind of blockage…"

"It'll be a ring transporter" said Carter. "Some kind of mobile ringing platform. Ba'al probably installed one to make access to this place easier."

"Coming up quick!" shouted Mitchell.

"Blast a hole using the drones!" yelled Daniel. "Now! Blow a hole!"

Bolton brought her full concentration to bear on firing the projectile weapons she knew must be somewhere inside the ship's shell. Only less and less power seemed to be reaching her controls… "Mckay, can you boost the power?"

"Trying!" came the loud response.

At seemingly the last second a glowing drone missile weapon shot out from each of the jumper's drive pods, breaking through to the surface, light from the planet's distant sun filtering down into the jumper's fore section.

Even as the ship burst free there came a groan from the rear section of the ship. "Despite everything, and even threat of certain death I can't get enough power to get us into orbit." said Mckay.

"Alright then" said Daniel "let's get as far away from the explosion as possible…"

"No, you don't understand" said Mckay frustratedly. "We're _out_ of power. That last little trip to the surface and the strain of firing the drones… it took everything out of the ship's power source it had left…"

And with that, the controls died under Lieutenant Bolton's hands.

The jumper began its dive towards the surface. Without power it fell like the ungainly cylindrical tube of metal it was. Mitchell watched as the surface of the planet became more defined, as he could suddenly make out shapes on the surface…

"Well, nice knowing you all" said Mckay.


	12. Last Second

**Chapter 12: Last Second **

Braced for the oncoming impact Mitchell felt rather surprised when instead of the jumper crashing into the hard surface of the planet and him being thrown forward and flattened against the windscreen he saw a bright flash of blue light and instead landed on the floor of the Odyssey. Around him, the rest of SG-1 and others began to stand up around him, as surprised to be alive as he was. Mckay opened his eyes and looked around. "Oh-" he said. Some Major that Mitchell had met before, but never got to know stepped forwards and said "Once again, SG-1, welcome aboard the Odyssey."

Back in the SGC Colonel Carter sat thinking about the Alterus mission. Mitchell walked into the room.

"Well, Carter, it certainly is amazing to see how interesting you find that wall…"

His words snapped her out of her thoughts, and she turned her gaze quickly from the wall to face him.

"Look, Carter, there was nothing we could have done. The place went up in flames, city, bugs ZPMs, the lot. Daniel's been bemoaning the loss of the city, while Mckay was muttering about the ZPMs the whole time, all the way back through the gate." He paused, and then almost laughed. "You've got to give him this – He's good… who would have thought of a mutating bug killing agent?"

"I know, Mitchell, but something's wrong here… Why would Ba'al destroy Alterus once he had it in his grasp?... Why didn't the Ori attack – by the time the Odyssey turned up, everything was gone. And Ba'al must have been beamed to somewhere…"

"So what you're saying is…"

"I'm saying I don't believe Ba'al _would_ destroy Alterus…"

"Well, the Odyssey's sensors picked up a massive explosion on the planet, and now we can't get the gate to Alterus to work."

"Well, sir, the gate wasn't working anyway. I never really thought we'd be able to gate back in…"

Mitchell shrugged his shoulders. "Anyway, who knows? Ba'al is a Goa'uld – they're all slightly nuts, right? Maybe he didn't really know what he had in his hands."

"I don't think so, sir." Said Carter. "He knew exactly what he had… Ba'al always does…"

Ba'al watched as the lights in the dark activated, and the darkness faded away.

He watched a mixture of other Ba'al clones and Kull warriors work at preparing the facility for the purposes of the Ba'al System Lords, who from here would grow in power and might and eventually reclaim what he had lost to the Replicators, the Ori, and the Tauri. The Ba'al System Lords he thought… That'd be interesting – for a while at any rate. By the time the Tauri worked out he hadn't been destroyed he would be so deeply entrenced in this place there would be no removing him. If his information was correct he was now in possession of the last Ori warships in this galaxy, and this force was greater than any that another could boast of. New clones to run the facility and new Kull warriors to fight for him would be created. With the technology of the Ancients at his disposal now, he would upgrade his remaining two Mother Ships, and Al-kesh to become almost as powerful as the Ori warships, armed with the devastating drones weapons Ancient shields, and ZPMs. Soon he would re-conquer this galaxy.

Ba'al looked around the control room of his new city.

* * *

_The Overmind stirred from restless slumbering. It was dark again now, and safe to re-emerge. The tiny eggs embedded in it's own silk of a past generation began to hatch, several dozen new creatures for the Overmind to fill. The tiny creatures, each the size of a small pebble began to scuttle away, away from the shiny, polished surface they now found themselves on. Within seconds they fell to an equally smooth floor, very similar to that of their last habitat. Identical, in fact._

_In a dark lab, in one of the thousands of rooms of Atlantis the scourge of Alterus began to spread once more.

* * *

_

**_To be continued... (in a sequel!)_**

**_Thank you to everyone who reviewed._**


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